Delivery vehicles are often used as part of a logistics operation that ships one or more items from one location to another. Examples of such a delivery vehicle may include an aircraft, an automotive vehicle (such as a delivery van or a tractor trailer), a rail car, or a marine vessel. Logistics operations that ship items from one location to another depend upon a sufficient operational status of the delivery vehicle in order to safely and securely move such items as well as for the delivery vehicle to safely and securely maintain the items in a desired configuration while being transported within a storage area of the delivery vehicle. Such a storage area (more generally referred to as a shipment storage) may, for example, come in the form of a storage compartment of an aircraft, a storage area on a delivery van, a trailer that is moved by a truck, a train car capable of being moved by a locomotive on a railway system, or a cargo hold of a marine vessel.
One problem commonly faced when maintaining items within such a storage area or shipment storage is how to monitor such items. In some instances, the items may be equipped with radio frequency identification (RFID) tags and interrogated by multiple RFID readers disposed within different parts of the shipment storage. While an RFID reader and its reader antenna has a characteristic read range for communicating with RFID tags, the read range may pose a limitation given the size of the shipment storage as well as for items that are not equipped with such RFID tags. There remains a need to monitor the internal storage contents of a shipment storage in a more robust and inclusive manner as well as in an adaptive way that avoids the need for large numbers of fixed monitors.
Beyond the challenges with monitoring items maintained within a shipment storage, further problems may be encountered with delivery vehicle based logistics operations that involve inspecting key parts of the delivery vehicle. For example, manual inspection of parts of a delivery vehicle can be undesirably expensive and time consuming for logistics personnel, such as flight crew personnel responsible for operating an aircraft type of delivery vehicle or maintenance personnel responsible for servicing such an aircraft. In some situations, the point to be inspected may not be easily reached or viewed by such personnel and may unfortunately require deployment of support structures, such as a ladder or gantry in order to gain access to such an inspection point. Doing so undesirably slows down the delivery vehicle based logistics operation.
Further still, problems may be encountered with limited communications with and/or between one or more items being shipped within the delivery vehicle. For example, in some instances, the communication range of a respective item is not far enough to allow communication with another item or other network device (such as a wireless transceiver onboard the delivery vehicle or disposed relative to a logistics facility). This may, in some instances, result in the loss of communication with an item in total or periodically while the item is being transported or maintained within the delivery vehicle.
To address one or more of these issues, there is a need for a technical solution that may be deployed as part of delivery logistics operations to enhance monitoring of shipped items in a delivery vehicle, inspections of the delivery vehicle, and providing adaptively extended and enhanced communications with one or more items shipped within a delivery vehicle.